MCM13 - w3d3 - 5m easy

Planned workout: 5 miles at Easy pace (between 9:23/mi and 9:03/mi). Goal accomplished 5 miles at 9:02/mi pace on the treadmill. 

My treadmill running inspiration was a Watch ESPN replay of the 2012 Women's Crossfit Games. Those women were getting their work in so how could I do less. I think that I want to add CrossFit to my bucket list of fitness goals, which currently include the Boston Marathon, Ironman Triathlon, and the JFK 50-mile run. 

This concludes my week of treadmill downtime. I did all of my workouts this week on the treadmill in order to recover from a dreadful 14 mile run attempt last Sunday where the heat nearly overcame me and I quit at the half marathon distance (it was 90+ degrees Fahrenheit and humid). 

Tomorrow I plan on being a bit counter productive by cycling with the Turtles and running about 3 miles when I am actually supposed to be running a slow 10 miles.

Marine Corps Marathon 2013 and Training Plans

It's been another long break from blogging about running for me. I have been running fairly consistently and I've raced two 5Ks since my last post. I have also registered for the Marine Corps Marathon and have been given a slot in the Annapolis 10-miler by a friend. Things are going pretty well and I am planning to train hard for a new personal best in the marathon.

This morning I had some time to think about my training and I was reconsidering my training plan and started to realize why it is important for a runner like myself to keep an active blog. You need to have some space to plan and review your training.

I was doing some heart rate based training for 5K racing earlier this year and I did not remember where I got my ideas from. If I had been blogging, I think that I may be able to look it up, but now I have to rely on my spotty memory. Oh well...

So, in my attempt to keep a record of what this current phase of training has been coming from I am capturing the Marine Corps Marathon plan I started the week of June 24th up to today where I changing it to a Runner's World training plan that looks promising.

Note: I saw a neat way of representing a training day in your log that never occurred to me in the Active.com community forum. Instead of writing "MCM 2013 - Week 1 - Tues Easy Run" as I have I could write: "w1d1 - 9 miles easy."

I had been using the Runner's World Smart Coach application's suggested plan for the following settings:

• Recent Race Time - 00:20:38
• Race Distance - 5K
• Goal Race Distance - Marathon
• Weekly Distance - 36-40 Miles
• Training Level - Hard
• Starting Week - 6/24
• Schedule Length - 16 Weeks (this was a mistake, this would've had me racing 10/13 with the MCM on 10/27)

My training went as follows:

• w1d1 - (plan) 9m easy, (actual) 9m broken into two runs with a 10 min rest in between
• w1d2 - (plan) 7m - 4m @ tempo, (actual) target distance tempo at 7:44/m
• w1d3 - (plan) 8m easy, (actual) hit target - on the treadmill
• w1d4 - (plan) 12m long run, (actual) skipped run for 30m bike ride

• w2d1 - (plan) 9m easy, (actual) 9.56m easy - hot and humid
• rest/ct - Bike ride 34m (commute)
• w2d2 - (plan) 8m - 2x1m @ 6:49 pace, (actual) 7.4m - mile 1 @ 6:57, mile 2 @ 7:20
• w2d3 - (plan) 8m easy, (actual) 6.5m easy
• w2d4 - (plan) 14m easy, (actual) 13.1m slow - crazy hot and humid

• w3d1 - (plan) 9m easy, (actual) 7.1m easy - on the treadmill
• w3d2 - (plan) 8m - 5m @ tempo, (actual) 6.5m - 5m @ 7:16 - on the treadmill

I would be doing an 8m easy pace run, but I changed my training plan to one I liked from Runner's World UK titled RW's Garmin-Ready Marthon Schedule: Sub-3:30. The plan can output a Garmin workout schedule that can sync workouts to my Garmin 405 training watch and I can have pace or heart rate workouts queued up for the particular day. The plan peaks with a 48 mile week and includes races, hill repeats, and 5 20+ mile long runs. I hope that I can fit all of the running in, but it seems to be a really good template.

Good luck and happy running.